


Your Face Becomes The Sun

by spockandawe



Series: Like The Morning Sun [5]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Caretaking, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Mind Meld, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Politics, Transformers Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 18:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13793508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe
Summary: Starscream isn’t happy about this.Not really a surprise. And you haven’t tried to hide any of this from him, but it’s a little different knowing in the abstract that you’ll sometimes cross cables with half the mechs in Autobot high command... versus seeing you off to the space bridge to take a trip to visit some of those mechs in person on Earth. So no, he’s not happy and you’re not surprised. But you are pleasantly surprised he’s handling it this well.





	Your Face Becomes The Sun

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/171262341311/your-face-becomes-the-sun-spockandawe-the)

Starscream isn’t happy about this.

Not really a surprise. And you haven’t tried to hide any of this from him, but it’s a little different knowing in the abstract that you’ll sometimes cross cables with half the mechs in Autobot high command... versus seeing you off to the space bridge to take a trip to visit some of those mechs in person on Earth. So no, he’s not happy and you’re not surprised. But you are pleasantly surprised he’s handling it this well.

Which still isn’t all _that_ great, all things considered, but you do appreciate the effort it must be costing him to handle this as gracefully as he is. He maybe froze up a little at first when you broke the news that you’d be heading out to Earth for a day, but he recovered fast enough. No demands that you cancel or postpone the trip, no demands that if you go, you don’t offer anyone a hardline, not even any attempt to set conditions on who you will and won’t hook up with. He’s even making polite, barely-stiff-at-all conversation with you about the trip as he walks you to the space bridge.

That being said, you do have to wonder if some of that might be because he’s afraid if he pushes you into a choice that way, he’s going to come out the loser. Honestly, that would make more sense than him just naturally handling this without getting worked up. It would sound a lot more like Starscream. Which then puts a whole new complexion on this conversation, where ‘who do you generally... _visit_ most often?’ might translate out more accurately to something like ‘who is your _favorite?’_ _,_ which as far as he’s concerned is a question that will have a definite right answer (Starscream) and wrong answer (anyone but Starscream).

Right, no— That’s not so fair of you. It might possibly be correct, technically, but that’s not fair of you. And that’s a big part of why you’ve fought so hard to free up just a single day where you can step away from your work here and just go… somewhere else. To visit your friends. You can go a long time without taking a break, but not forever. You don’t want to snap at Starscream, specially not when you can tell how hard he’s trying to be good about this, and you _really_ don’t want to make any pointed comparisons to how unfazed Windblade was when you told _her_ where you were going.

So you’re hanging on tight to your patience while Starscream goes through each of the mechs stationed with Prime down on Earth, and never quite comments directly on their merits or appeal. You’ve already been through the list a few times, and you could talk about any of the non-colonists in a lot more personal depth than Starscream could, but you don’t want to get snippy with him and you don’t want to give him a reason to feel worse about this than he probably already does.

Frag, when you think about things from that angle, you can tell how fried you’re getting. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if there was much of anyone planetside you could check in with, catch a break with maybe, but— Ironhide hasn’t been up for much of anything with anyone, not for years. Not since everything went south with Sunstreaker. That’s its own problem, but one you don’t even know how to start fixing. Never even mind how Sunstreaker is doing. These days, he keeps to himself enough you almost forgot he was here. Blurr hasn’t been interested ever since he took a few steps back from the Autobots and set up with his bar. He’s friendly enough, but he’s got definite limits on how far things go.

Which is fine, y’know? You’ve been around long enough to know that happens sometimes. You’ve had your off times too. But apart from them— Sometimes it feels like Rodimus took half your friends and Optimus took the other half, and they both snuck away from the planet and out of reach as soon as they were able to. And you’re stuck here, left behind, trying to piece the place back together.

No, no. Enough. You need to stop spinning your wheels like this. You’re going to see your friends, you’re going to unwind, and things might not be perfect, but they’ll be _better._ So that’s what counts.

And while you’re at it, you interrupt Starscream as gently as you can. “I’ll only be a day,” you tell him. You’re pretty sure trying to give his hand a reassuring squeeze in the middle of a public street will do more harm than good right now, so you settle for bumping your shoulder into his. “Tonight, then tomorrow, and by tomorrow evening I’ll be back home.”

You do sneak a sideways glance at his face, and he frowns like he wants to argue with you, but you can also see a bit of tension go out of his wings. _Home._ When you’re less tired, you’ve gotta try that again and see what it does to him. Is Cybertron home? Is Iacon? Is Starscream what you’re calling home? You don’t know if you’d be able to pin it down, but you think even Starscream would have trouble spinning that in a bad way, and you want to watch him struggle with _good_ ambiguity for a change.

He does mutter, “There _is_ a great deal that can go wrong in just a single day.”

You bump up against his shoulder again, this time leaning in enough that the back of your fingers brush his. Still not hand holding, but you think it’s the closest he’ll let you get away with. “I’m on call if there’s an emergency. If you can get a message through, someone can toss me back through the bridge before I’m even out of recharge.”

That makes his mouth twitch, and you feel a little surge of satisfaction. He looks a bit less stiff now, and even though you still don’t think he’s anywhere close to properly _happy,_ you’ll take it.

Still, you nudge at things a tiny bit more. “You should go meet up with Windblade tonight, if her schedule’s open.”

He shoots you a sharp look, and doesn’t say anything about what an obvious ploy it is to stop him from spending the night alone with his thoughts, but his voice is a bit caustic as he replies, “Why, so we can go on a nice little flight together?”

You haven’t had any luck getting him back into the air, and you know he’s not flying, and _he_ knows you know he’s not flying, but you’re just… not up to pushing that directly right now. Maybe after this trip. Still, doesn’t mean you won’t shove him towards Windblade and wait for her to get impatient with them spending all their time on the ground and bait him back into the air. But that’s nothing you’re directly working at. “Figure you won’t get much of a better opportunity than this to betray all my secrets to her.” You keep your face as innocent as possible. “Just think of how much betraying you could do in a whole night together.”

And that almost gets a laugh out of him. There you go. “But a betrayal is so much more _rewarding_ if I can do it in front of you and watch your face as it happens.”

You don’t have much more of that in you just now, but it’s enough to get the two of you the rest of the way to the space bridge. You don’t think Starscream’s really the sort to talk about missing you, even if there weren’t other mechs in the room, but he talks about scheduling and keeping him updated and letting him know when you arrive back on Cybertron, and you take his meaning just fine.

Stepping through the bridge— You’ve done it before, but honestly, you underestimated how much of a relief it would be to get away from Cybertron, even for just a little while. You feel lightheaded as you recalibrate to Earth’s gravity, geomagnetic field, atmosphere, all of it. You’re only a few steps away from Cybertron, but being able to hand off those responsibilities for even a single night, it’s already helping more than you would have ever expected.

Jetfire’s the first familiar face you spot, sitting at Metrotitan’s space bridge controls. There’s a lot of… unfamiliar faces too, mostly colonists from what you’ve heard. But your comms are already lighting up with hello messages from all sorts of folks you haven’t seen in way too long. You do almost trip walking down from the space bridge platform, when you’re still looking over the room and accidentally make optic contact with Soundwave. That’s. _Wow._ You knew he was here, and you know things seem to be pretty chill with him here. And you work with plenty of Decepticons back home. But that’s still— very, very strange.

Not important right now. Maybe if you set up semi-regular trips to visit Earth, one of those times you can try saying hi to Soundwave and see how awkward it gets. That sounds like an interesting conversation to have. But for now, you’ve got limited time and you want to make the most of it. Besides, Jetfire’s already halfway across the room to you and smiling wide, and _Primus_ you have really been away for too long.

Jetfire’s dry sense of humor is exactly what you needed right now, and he gets you caught up on everyone who’s around, everyone who could get back around before you need to leave, what everybody is up to. He’s still on duty, so he can’t linger, but you make him promise to come looking for you tonight or tomorrow, whenever he’s free.

You wander off into the halls, accessing a map of Metrotitan’s internals as you go. You could pick a person and ask for directions, but it’s nice to get inside a new Titan and just… _wander._ You can feel yourself already starting to relax, comparing details of layout and structure to what Windblade has shown you with Metroplex and what you’ve gleaned from the other colonies. You’re starting to get enough data points to put together what’s just the quirks of having highly reconfigurable sentient cities rearranging their own internals, and what’s down to inherent differences in Titan frametypes. It’s a puzzle without real stakes, without a deadline, and without any kind of life-or-death pressure pushing you to find an answer as soon as you possibly can. You didn’t even realize how much was weighing on you from home until you were able to nudge all those problems out of frontal processing.

You can pick out the main shuttlebay pretty easily on the map, so you aim for that. It seems like a likely gathering point, and you’ll have to swing through at some point if you want to see Sky Lynx face to face while you’re here. There’s a group of colonists—Camiens, you think—chatting with him, but the moment he spots you his head shoots up and he moves forward, shouldering delicately past the other bots on his way over to you. You can hear him making his apologies back over his shoulder to the others, promising to finish the story another time, and he winds up being distracted enough he almost accidentally runs you down. This— This is nice and familiar, this feels like home.

You don’t escape that conversation for over half a cycle, you’re pretty sure you hear the last few months of history for every mech on the planet, and you barely get five words in edgeways, but you don’t even mind. You just relax and listen, and exchange a few lazy background comms with other friends while Sky Lynx talks. Cosmos will be on patrol in space until after you go home, but you tell him you hope to make another trip back soon. Jetfire sends you a quick message to say that when you have the time, you ought to meet Aileron, he thinks you’ll like her. Sideswipe lets you know he’ll be in his quarters for a little while longer before patrol, and tells you that Optimus will probably be back from meeting human politicians in a cycle or two.

Sky Lynx has to cut things off eventually, since he’s scheduled for his own patrol, so he ends the conversation himself before you need to make your own excuses. You hadn’t realized how much you’ve been missing this. It’s given you plenty of time to map out who’s where and when they’re free, so you head off for Sideswipe’s quarters, since it looks like he’s due to leave next.

You do get a little turned around before you quite get there, when the hallways don’t _quite_ seem to be matching the maps. You send Jetfire a few more comms, and he apologizes and tells you that the internal layout doesn’t seem to be one hundred percent fixed quite yet, and he’s not sure if it’s because Metrotitan is settling down for the long haul instead of being ready to get up and go on a moment’s notice. Which is a _fascinating_ issue to think about, when you get down into what changes and why, and one you definitely an issue you want to discuss with Windblade eventually—

But basically, all this means that you get very distracted and slightly more lost, and get yanked back into the present when you turn a corner and almost run head-on into another mech.

She looks— familiar, you think. Maybe. She’s wearing an Autobot badge, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much, with how hard a lot of colonists seem to have latched onto the faction system. She looks you up and down, like she knows you just fine, but you can’t quite place her.

After an awkward moment, you venture, “Do I know you?”

She nods without saying a word, still looking you over, though you couldn’t say what she’s looking _for._ After a few nanokliks longer, she claps you on the shoulder with one hand, says, “Good to see you,” and slips around you to continue down the hallway.

You turn and watch her, still trying to place her, and listen as footsteps approaching behind you.

You hear Sideswipe say, “Wheeljack—!” But then he looks past you and says, “Wait, Arcee, you don’t need to _leave—_ ”

She waves without turning around, says, “It’s fine,” and continues without even a pause.

Sideswipe shakes his head, but he’s grinning.

You look back down the hallway, then back to him. You know what you just heard, but. “That’s _Arcee?”_

“Yep,” he says cheerfully. “Guess she’s changed up her frame a few times since you last saw her.”

“Huh.” You don’t have anything much better than that for the moment.

“She likes you,” he adds.

That’s an interesting conversation, and one you weren’t expecting at all. You did know that Arcee was here, physically. And you’ve seen her before, of course. You didn’t really know you were on her radar at all, and for a long time, you would have been a bit nervous at knowing you were on her radar. But the way Sideswipe talks about her, sounds like she’s been getting on pretty well with the group.

He updates you on how everyone’s doing just like Sky Lynx did, and while you’re sure Sky Lynx did better on the details, Sideswipe tells it all as a much more exciting story. You don’t mind that you’re hearing the same information all over again. Even without seeing everyone you’re hearing about, you’ve _missed_ them. You can exchange messages across the space bridges, but people… don’t, for the most part. And anyways, it’s not the same as seeing them yourself, and being _with_ people.

Sideswipe heads off with you towards one of the exits from Metrotitan—or Autobot City, you suppose. You’re not sure how you feel about calling a Titan by something that’s not really his name, but you guess Metrotitan has done that before, so maybe it’s fine by him. It’s a shame there are few enough bots living here that everyone you’re trying to see is in and out, but you think tomorrow’s patrol schedules line up better for you to see everyone in groups instead of tracking them down one at a time.

Before Sideswipe goes, you do ask him, “Anything you want me to pass back to Sunstreaker?”

He gives you a sharp look, but there’s not much bite in it, and after a moment, he grins again. “Him? Nah. He’s just sitting on his aft in Iacon, right? Figure I’ll catch up with him whenever I get a chance to swing through the city.”

Well, you’d been hoping that if there were more messages on the regular, there _would_ be more mechs going back and forth through the space bridge, since it’s hard for you to make time to make the trip yourself. But it sounds like he’s hoping to make a trip soon, and you’ll take it. “Just be sure to look me up too when you’re around. It’s been too long.”

He laughs and waves goodbye before transforming and accelerating out of the city and down onto the planet with a squeal of tires.

You barely get turned around and start thinking about who to find next, when there’s a mech already there, close enough to touch, when you didn’t even hear a single noise.

“ _Jazz.”_

“Hey, Wheeljack.” He’s grinning even wider than Sideswipe was, and holds his arms open, half-laughing. The two of you hug, until he pulls away, stepping backwards towards a door and beckoning you forward. “How ’bout I lead you towards an actually _populated_ corner of the city. Figures Sideswipe wouldn’t be thinking of that when he's busy looking forward to a good drive.”

You shrug and laugh. “He was busy, and seeing a new Titan has been an educational experience.”

Jazz shakes his head at you, but you can still see him smiling. “Educational. Shame on you, aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”

It’s always easy to find a comfortable rhythm with Jazz. You track the ways he takes you on the maps, and the path you take is a little roundabout, but best as you can tell, he’s taking you past some of Metrotitan’s internals as you go, bits and pieces of infrastructure you can look over as you walk.

You just catch up casually at first, but eventually you ask, “How’s everyone I haven’t heard about?” You don’t bother updating him on who you have heard about. If he picked you up just as Sideswipe left, you’d wager good money he was eavesdropping for a good long while before then.

And that’s the right call. You get some more of the sordid details about everything that went down with Galvatron, get updates on how the colonists are doing with religion when faced with a real actual Prime (that’s enough to give you a headache and a half, you’ll have to see if you can find a psychiatrist familiar with primus apotheosis who’d be willing to be stationed on earth), and… hear some news about Thundercracker.

That’s— Hm. You need to think about whether to pass that to Starscream. You’d really like to know whether _Starscream_ would like you to pass that to Starscream. And there’s something funny about the way Jazz is watching you as he gives you that history, enough that it makes you wonder what he knows. You guess you wouldn’t be surprised if he had a clue, even from over here. Jazz absorbs gossip like nobody else, and he always had a knack for fitting together tiny scraps of information to piece together the big picture, even before he began intelligence work and the war dragged on for a few million years.

For now, you just do your best not to react. You aren’t going to be able to lie to him if you’re direct about it, and it’s better not to acknowledge it if he’s not sure. And worst case, if Jazz knows what’s up with you and Starscream, you think he’s giving former and current Decepticons more of a chance than most other Autobots can say.

He moves on from it smoothly enough that you can’t say whether or not he knows something is up. It’s fine, just another thing to worry about. _Later._ Not now. Definitely later.

And you’re getting good information here. Nothing confidential, but definitely information that’s not clearing the space bridge on its own. Maybe you oughta feel bad about doing work when you’re supposed to be taking a break, but this is work that doesn’t _feel_ like work.

Though— Listening to his breakdown, which is starting to feel like it covers every mech you’ve ever met who isn’t on Cybertron right this moment, you realize he hasn’t brought someone up. It’s probably nothing, probably that there’s no news, or no interesting news, but your fuel tank still does an unpleasant little turn. Specially as you hear updates about Kup and Springer and there seem to be… little person-shaped holes in that story that aren’t quite adding up the way they should.

So you check the maps to be sure you’re not near any open public areas, glance up and down the hallway to be sure nobody’s in sight, and quietly ask Jazz, “What about Prowl?”

The way his face freezes for a nanoklik is the only sign that you’ve hit on something. He doesn’t pause or stumble, and after a moment, he’s grinning easily again. With someone who hasn’t known him as long as you have, it’d be easy to brush this off, but your spark sinks.

“Jazz?”

He does stop then. He glances at you, then back over his shoulder down the hall you just walked. He hesitates for a nanoklik longer, then pulls you off down a side passage, narrower and dimmer than where you’ve been walking. You don’t say anything, just shoot him a questioning look.

He smiles again, though it’s tighter, more _tense_ than before. “Thought you oughta see the fuel pumps on an intact Titan while you’ve got the chance. As long as it’s a vacation in name only, might as well collect info, right?”

You don’t sigh over him knowing details about Metroplex’s repair process, or protest that the fuel pumps are honestly one of the easier things to fix, since they map decently to regular mechs and aren’t dormant machinery, like so many of his internals. So no, you don’t especially need to see Metrotitan’s fuel pumps. But they are _loud,_ and the conversation kind of dies away until you start to get close and the sound of the fuel pumps going begins to take over your audio inputs.

In an undertone, you ask, “Surveillance? Here?”

Jazz is still smiling, but it looks even more forced than before. “Maybe not. Old habits, y’know?”

You wait a klik, because you’re lost as anything, and don’t want to push until you at least know _something_ about what you’re dealing with. Still, the more this drags out, the more nervous you get about what could be going on.

But Jazz speaks up first. “Prowl.” He sighs and drags a hand over his face. “Right. Prowl. First off, what’s the latest you know?”

“Latest is what we had from Prime, which wasn’t much. We had Prowl in custody, Optimus got into a fight of some kind that ended with Prowl _out_ of custody, and he didn’t really care to share any background or details before heading back to Earth. Don’t think Prowl is in Iacon, but he might be outside the city limits somewhere, there’s a couple hermit-type mechs who seem more comfortable outside civilization. Never seemed very _Prowl,_ but status reports from Metroplex are erratic enough we couldn’t say for sure if he’d gone off-planet.”

“Off-planet? Yeah, he left. Least for a bit. I don’t think anyone has seen much of him since then. A couple sightings, a few reports. Nothing direct.” Jazz hesitates again. “Did you get a chance to talk to him? Back when he was being held?”

You shake your head.

Jazz looks off away from you. “I did. On Earth. Real briefly on Cybertron.”

You wait, but there’s only more silence. “And?”

Even from this angle, you can see Jazz’s mouth twist. “I don’t know what’s wrong. But _something’s_ gone— gone real bad.”

“I think most people were thinking similar,” you say, cautiously.

He glances at you, then back away again. None of the tension has gone out of his frame. “Okay. And what’s anybody _done_ about it? Not you—” He turns to face you for a moment, putting a hand on your arm. “Not— You’ve had plenty going on, I hear about how many projects you’ve got going without even looking for the information.”

You wince. You’re still worried about what Jazz is trying to get at, but you try, “I don’t think we had him around long enough to try much, not before Optimus came to visit.”

He shakes his head. “No, I— No. Not you. I’m not talking about _just_ after everything got slagged with the combiners. How long was he here, before then? Or on Cybertron before that? There were six whole months of quiet without any disasters at all, and you can’t tell me he was doing fine then either, because I was there too.”

“Jazz—”

“Not saying you should’ve done something. Primus knows you have more than enough to take care of.” His voice drops further. Even over the sound of Metrotitan’s fuel pumps, you can hear him ventilating too fast. “I’m saying how many people were around? How many people who’ve known him as long as you or, or me? And did anybody do a thing, or did we all just wait until Optimus went to go have that little talk with him in prison and what happens is he comes back talking about how he would’ve _killed_ Prowl except—”

You don’t interrupt him, but Jazz cuts himself off, freezing mid-sentence. He glances up over your shoulder, and you turn to follow his gaze. Optimus is walking down the chamber towards the two of you. When you look at Jazz his smile is strained, but as you watch, you see him reset his optics, and he consciously lets the tension slide out of his shoulders, arms, all the way down to his pedes, and his smile smooths into something relaxed and familiar.

“Speak of the devil,” he says, and grins. It looks completely natural, but right now it almost hurts you to see it. He rolls his shoulders and stretches his arms as Optimus closes the distance. “Seems like you’ve gotten booked for some private time. Don’t let me interrupt and bring the mood down.”

You want to argue, except— You’re still confused about what you’re even arguing _about,_ honestly. Plus you know how hard it is to pin Jazz down when he really doesn’t want to do something, and you won’t lie, the familiar old comfort of Prime is starting to get to you. There’s something about the solemn way he looks at his people, the slow, heavy tread of his steps, you can’t describe why it feels so much like coming home, but you can’t deny how good it feels.

Over comms, you send Jazz a request for _more, tomorrow,_ and he nods once, short and sharp, before turning to fully face Optimus.

“Hey there,” Jazz drawls, smiling all easy and relaxed. “Chasing down rogue soldiers in the depths of your city? Nobody around you can delegate that to?”

“Jazz,” Optimus says, and nods. Frag, you always forget the way his voice reverberates through your frame. You’ve missed this. It’s been much too long. He turns to you and nods again. “Wheeljack.”

“Hey, Prime,” you say. You don’t bother trying to keep the happiness out of your voice, and you can hear the solemn, slow way he smiles when he replies.

“I hope you won’t mind if I ask to borrow you for the evening.” He looks to Jazz. “Unless Jazz has other plans.”

“Jazz doesn’t have other plans, you’re free to steal him for the evening,” he answers, still smiling. If you hadn’t seen him a klik ago, you wouldn’t be able to guess there was anything… off. Even after seeing him, it’s almost enough to make you wonder if you imagined the whole thing. “I’ll finish just catching up tomorrow,” he continues. He gives you a long look that you can’t read, but you nod and hope that answers whatever his question is. He turns to walk away, waving as he goes. “You two crazy kids have fun. Don’t stay up too late.”

Optimus moves up behind your shoulder as the two of you watch him go. He’s a reassuring, steady, _familiar_ presence. Familiar in a way you didn’t realize you missed. Feels like it could be almost any time over the last couple million years, just standing here with Prime like this.

Jazz disappears down a side corridor, and before you can finish bringing up your maps of Metrotitan and trying to figure out where he’s headed, Optimus rests one heavy hand on your shoulder. “Old friend. Would you care to accompany me to my quarters?”

You know what, that suits you just _fine._ You didn’t think this was the way your trip was going to go, but you also didn’t have much hope that things were going to go this direction. At quiet times in the war, or way, way back before it picked up, used to be that Prime would do this kind of thing on the regular. Quiet one-on-one time with his senior officers. Sometimes interfacing, sometimes hardlines, sometimes just… sitting and talking, nothing else. Never was really defined, with him or between you and any of the other officers. Just something that kinda _happened._

Yeah, you won’t lie, you’d been figuring you’d spend the night with somebody, what with how close all of you have been for so long. Metrotitan might be inhabited by colonists and Decepticons now, but there’s enough of the old guard here that you were pretty sure you’d be set. Prime, though? You’d been hoping he’d have time for you to see him, just for a quick conversation, but you knew even that wasn’t a sure thing. Having him come find you himself and invite you back to his place, that sends a rush of warmth through your spark and out across your plating. You might not be living with everybody else, but it’s like in the war, when being stationed away for a while didn’t mean you stopped belonging.

The walk with Optimus is quiet. He wasn’t ever that much for small talk. The two of you do get pulled aside a few times by mechs you don’t recognize, who need to get Optimus’s approval on this thing or need a reply from him to some message, but it mostly goes over your head. Sounds… human, for the most part. You’ve got enough you’re barely keeping track of just on Cybertron, never mind the colonies, and you’re definitely not planning to dabble in espionage while you’re on a social visit. Mostly you update your friends on your change of plans for the night, and respond to the good-natured ribbing that comes your way.

Even with the delays, Prime takes you on the most direct path back to his quarters and it doesn’t take you long to get there. He beckons you through the door, and you head on in, find a seat, try to make yourself comfortable. Take in all the scenery, as it were. It’s funny, specially with Windblade around, you’re getting used to the way Camiens will try to decorate any empty surface they find. And with Metroplex and Iacon in the state they are, you’re used to things being battered and patched and barely welded together. Metrotitan… isn’t either of those things. His interior is bare, probably not much different from how Metroplex looked, back in the day, but he’s in much better repair than Metroplex.

Optimus takes a seat across from you, watching you look around. “What do you think of Autobot City?”

Hey, you’re predictable, it takes almost no prompting at all to start discussing engineering this and that, comparing Metrotitan’s interior to what you’ve seen in Metroplex or Navitas, or what you’ve gleaned from the dismantled Titans on Caminus and Devisiun. You have to reel yourself back in when you realize you’re getting close to disclosing proprietary information. It’s— strange, keeping things from Optimus. You guess you’ve spent a few million years having him be the highest authority you report to. But this isn’t so different from balancing Starscream and Windblade, you’re not _hiding_ things from him, you’re just not sharing other people’s secrets.

He does interrupt you mid-ramble when there’s a knock at the door. “Pardon me,” he says, standing and crossing the room. It’s a mech you don’t recognize, Eukarian by the looks of her, who hands off two cubes of energon, with straws already and everything, and exchanges a few quick words with Optimus. She keeps craning around his shoulder to steal looks at you, but when you wave, she jumps and locks her optics on Prime’s face. Ha, whoops.

You can’t see much of her face to see how much you embarrassed her—startled her? You’re not sure. She’s got a faceplate that looks newer than the rest of her frame, and a color scheme that goes heavy on the blue and red, and you sigh a little to yourself. _Really_ oughta see about that psychiatrist thing. You don’t need all the colonies messing themselves up with primus apotheosis when it’s already done such a number on native Cybertronians.

But again, later. That’s a _later_ issue. Right now, you’re relaxing, and you’re having a good time, and you’re not worrying about anything more serious than catching up with Optimus. He finishes up whatever they’re talking about and turns back to you, letting the door close behind him. He hands you one cube, and this time when he sits down, it’s next to you instead of across from you.

You let out a long, contented ventilation, and take a sip of energon. There’s something about the flavor you can’t quite place, and you ask, “Local or imported?”

Optimus says, “Collected locally, but some of the colonists have been experimenting with additives and the refinement process.”

The conversation stays about that inane while both of you work on your energon. It’s… slow. Nice and relaxed. If you were trying to get work done, you could down this in half a klik and get back to business, or drink it without even tasting while you worked one-handed. Kinda depressing to realize that most of your meals have been that way for a while, ‘cept the ones where you’re trying to nudge Starscream to eat more regularly. Every so often one of your friends drags you away for a night out in Iacon, but that’s still not the same as _this._

And while you make unimportant nothing conversation, you relax sideways into Optimus. This? This is good. It’s been years since you got to do this with him, not since the early days of coming to Earth the first go around.

“It’s been a while,” says Optimus, suddenly, echoing your thoughts.

You’re done with your energon, so you disperse the cube, toss the straw onto a side table, and just go right ahead and lean on into him without even pretending that’s not what you’re after. “Too long,” you say. And you want to continue with something about how he should come visit Cybertron more, or you wish you could come to Earth more, but you’re not sure how either of you will be able to make that time in the first place. There’s gotta be a way to do it, some way to make it work. You’ll worry about that after the two of you have had some nice stress-free time together.

There’s companionable quiet for a few nanokliks, then Optimus says, “They must be missing you back on Cybertron. I’m sure you have a great deal to keep you busy.”

You shrug, letting your optics dim. “Sure. But that tends to happen most places I go. They can get along without me for a day.” And you’re on call if there’s an emergency.

Actually— Wouldn’t hurt to check in with Starscream and Windblade, let them know how you’re doing, only any regular comms at this range would need to go through the space bridge, and that means going past whoever’s got bridge duty right now. If it’s still Jetfire, that’s fine by you, and you’re sure Windblade won’t mind, but you doubt Starscream wants you to be sending private messages to him that other mechs are going to see. Maybe you and he can work out a code, something like ‘we may need to reschedule our next meeting’ to mean ‘I miss you.’ You’ll have to bring that up with him for sure.

Prime adds, “What projects have been taking up your time lately?”

Ah, that needs more of your concentration, ’cause you’ve got to be sure you aren’t sharing anything that needs to stay secret. How to bulk up Metroplex’s defenses means bringing up that there are weak spots in his defenses, and skirts real close to talking about what the weak spots _are_ in his defenses, and every cityspeaker you’ve spoken to has been real firm on Titan workings being need-to-know. Plus all the forward planning Starscream has you doing for city defense work, which means skirting around the details of the new city infrastructure plan and progress putting that plan into practice— Lots to not talk about. But lots of very broad generalities you can share. It’s the upside of being so busy you barely have time to recharge, you aren’t at all short on work to talk about.

Optimus makes an agreeable noise, and you add, “And what have you been up to?”

It’s… mostly politics, which makes you wince. Vacation, this is supposed to be a _vacation._ But he’s even more sparing with the details than you were, which makes you feel a little less bad about how much you aren’t sharing.

There’s a little more back and forth like that, with Prime’s arm settling companionably around your shoulder as you talk. You don’t know if the evening’s stopping there or going further, but the longer you’re here the more you _relax,_ and you think you can honestly say you’re up for anything he wants.

After a few kliks, though, he pulls away and turns in his seat to look at you. He resets his vocalizer. “Old friend. I do apologize for asking, when you’re meant to be spending time away from your work—” You can’t help tensing up for a moment. Optimus holds up a hand between you. “Would you mind doing a slight tune-up for my servos? My hands are getting stiff, and with Ratchet being gone—”

You relax all in a rush. “Aw, Prime, that’s not _work._ You don’t even need to ask.”

He’s got a basic tool set in his berth chamber. And this room— This room _definitely_ feels like Prime’s familiar old quarters, the same kind of living space he manages to establish for himself whenever he’s settled somewhere for a decent period. Bare and uncluttered, but comfortable. Feels almost like you could be walking into his room back on one of the old flagships, or even the berth chamber he had in Old Iacon back before the city was destroyed.

You sit him down on the edge of his berth, lay out the tools beside his leg, kneel, and get to work. This might be medic work, technically, but it’s nice simple mechanics once you know the basics. Easy enough to work and talk at the same time.

After a klik, Optimus says, “I hear Cybertron has quite the diverse population these days.”

That’s a tactful way of putting it, you guess. You’re not going to touch on all the integration and reintegration slag you have to deal with every single day you live there, but, “Sure is. The factions miss the planet, the neutrals miss it even more, and feels like every single colonist wants to at least see it with their own optics. Lot of ‘em settling out in the suburbs, little miniature enclaves.”

“Not placing undue strain on the city, I hope? Though I imagine it should be some help with trade.” You don’t know how you’re supposed to answer that, but it seems fairly rhetorical. There are a few nanokliks of companionable silence, then Optimus adds, “And how are unemployment rates?”

You shift, uncomfortably, keeping your optics on your work. “I don’t think I should—” You trail off at first, waiting for Optimus to finish that sentence, but he stays quiet. After an awkward moment, you finish, “Probably shouldn’t be exchanging private info with off-world governing powers, is all.”

From the corner of your optic, you can see Optimus incline his head to you, fractionally. He doesn’t say anything, and you’re still cringing internally at how rude that must’ve come off. How do you even say that kind of thing? This is territory you usually leave to Windblade and Starscream, and there’s a reason for that. Never even mind how strange it still feels to be saying no to Prime. You switch to his other hand, and finally, desperately add, “Personal questions are fair game, just— not governing stuff, y’know?”

Optimus looks down at the hand you finished, turning it over and flexing his fingers. He says, “How has the experience been, working with Starscream?”

Ah, that makes your spark warm up again. You’ve got four million years of ugly, destructive war behind you, and being able to trip into something that feels like it has all this _potential,_ that still doesn’t feel quite real. But you— aren’t going to get quite _that_ personal with Optimus.

“It’s been _real_ good,” you tell him without hesitation. “Mighta been some growing pains at first, but things settled down pretty quick. He appreciates the work I do, and he’s got plenty to keep me busy.”

He nods, still watching you work. “I am impressed. I would have thought that Decepticon infighting would have delayed his consolidation of power. Though it seems that isn’t a problem?”

You try not to frown. “Prime—”

There’s an uncomfortable few nanokliks of silence, and then Optimus sighs. “My apologies, old friend. So much of this colony’s access to trade and resources is filtered through Cybertron and Starscream. Anything you can tell me about him will be of material help, even only on the most personal level.”

To avoid answering that non-question, you wrap up the last couple tweaks in his hand extra fast, announce, “Done,” and push yourself up to your pedes. You try to force a smile into your voice. “Maybe can we continue this conversation in the morning? Don’t know if it’s lack of recharge catching up with me, but it feels like I could go to sleep right here on the floor.”

Optimus agrees gracefully enough, which is a relief. And then he adds, “Though I hope you aren’t planning to enter recharge quite this moment.”

The smile in your voice isn’t at all forced as you reply, “I think I could manage to put it off a little while longer.”

He wants a hardline, which sounds just about as perfect as anything could right now. No matter how bad things ever got, Prime’s processor is always able to settle you out, give you the space to spread everything out and reorganize your thoughts. He’s got archives you could get lost in, everything dating back to his pre-war enforcer days up through the present, all meticulously stored and organized. You hear tell he wanted to be an archivist, back in the functionist days when that wasn’t an option for someone with an alt mode like his. He never pursued it, but you think he would have been good at the job.

Sinking into the hardline feels as easy and natural as ventilating. The push and pull of his thoughts has _weight_ to it, but never so much force at once you end up bowled over and out of control. You’ve enjoyed crossing cables with most every mech in Autobot high command, and they’re all good ‘bots, but none of them come close to feeling the way Prime does when you’re hooked up this way.

Even while you bask, you take a quick moment to run back over your files and be sure _your_ archiving system is in order. No need to make sure Autobot war secrets are hidden away here, which is a thought you feel Optimus take notice of, with a ripple of quiet interest. You cut off that train of thought right off without letting it go any further. No need to hide any of your old files from Optimus, he’s seen them more than enough times by now. And you take one last glance over your newer files, being sure that the governing work is separated out, and all the personal secrets that you— You won’t share one partner’s secret’s with another, so you’re definitely not going to share them here. That gets even more interest from Optimus, and you can feel your plating flush hot, just a little.

He doesn’t push it, and it’s easy to sink deep enough into the physical connection that you mostly lose track of your frame, until all that’s left is a distant awareness of the warmth of his frame beside you. You’re probably going to go into recharge just like this, cables linked. Won’t be the first time, and as long as your archiving is in good shape, it’s a safe enough way to spend a night, and cozy like you wouldn’t believe.

Optimus eases down into your files without so much as a ripple. You start sifting back through his time on Earth while he looks over the time you’ve been spending in Iacon. There’s more to his files than there is to yours, what with those months you spent in a CR chamber without a head. Your files are a little piecemeal with all the bits and pieces you’ve had to filter out, but at least Optimus is in a similar position. Dealings with human politics and miscellaneous Cybertronian leaders, you assume.

You skirt around the fights that pop up here and there in his files, just brushing close enough to get his impressions, line those up with the stories you’ve had from your other friends on the visit. But really, you’ve had enough of fighting to last you a lifetime. Optimus is drifting through memories of Maccadam’s, sitting and talking with Blurr, Ironhide, all them, mechs that make Optimus sigh and smile with memories of _old friend._ You’re taking in Earth. You knew there was a lot more to it than you saw the first time around, but you didn’t have all that much leisure time back in the day. Optimus has at least swung through most of the major landmasses, far as you can tell, and it looks like there’s loads of biomes you haven’t seen anything of yet.

Optimus seems caught up on your memories of mutual friends, because now he’s brushing up against all the other mechs you’ve been spending your days with. Lots of Windblade, lots of Starscream, and plenty of other people too— Though you’re not sure how many of the others he’ll known as more than a name (if even that much, considering how many of them are from the colonies).

You do notice now many memories of Starscream he’s bumping into, because the memories keep cutting off with a little jerk wherever you decided the line was for state or personal secrets. You won’t lie, you cut it kind of conservative. Not much point censoring the files if everything around the hole tells a person what you’re hiding in the first place. But— You send Optimus a burst of embarrassment-apology for how choppy that part of your archives is, and nudge him away to some of the memories of New Iacon, and the progress of the rebuilding.

You turn back to the memories of Earth. Weird seeing Optimus going about his day and casually talking to Soundwave like nothing is strange about that situation, though in some ways it makes you even more curious to get the measure of the mech yourself when you have the chance. You’re starting to get sleepy, starting to drift towards recharge, when you start feeling those little jolts and missed steps where your memories are cutting off for Optimus.

He’s in more memories of Starscream, which pulls you back towards being awake again. You pull yourself far enough out of the hardline to mumble something about sorry, none of those memories will be very smooth, he can try something else. You feel his acknowledgment over the connection, and— Nothing changes.

Your attention is on what Optimus is doing now. Not on his memories. He chases one memory of an unproductive manufacturer’s meeting, one where nothing was said so you have nothing to hold back. After the meeting, you’re held up talking to a pair of Devisiun mechs as the room empties, and when they finish, Starscream is there waiting for you. He walks up to your seat at the table, holding out a datapad, and—

The memory cuts off, but Optimus sends you the feeling of _question,_ and. And the archive is partitioned off from Optimus, but _you_ know that’s when Starscream handed you a draft for—

No, _nope,_ you have to cut that thought off right there before it can bleed across the hardline. Very, very carefully, you throttle your end of the connection so he’s not getting anything that conscious. Emotions, sure, details of private government meetings, not so much. And not so much what happened after that one-on-one, when you persuaded Starscream that the government wasn’t going to shut down if he took one night off, and he ought to go home and get a decent night of rest for a change.

Optimus catches the satisfaction of the work, and of getting Starscream to do a little something to take care of himself. Not to reasons behind it, but the feelings come through just fine. And the _affection,_ which ought to be just fine, but for some reason there’s something about the way Optimus is nudging at this memory that’s setting you on edge. So when he asks for more, you stick to your no.

You’re too tense to sleep now. Optimus doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t even act like anything’s unusual as he slides directly into another memory of Starscream. Just a single day after the other. He prods at the memory, asks for more past your cutoff, and this time when you tell him no, you can feel the way he regards you for a nanoklik with grave disappointment before moving on to the next day, the next memory.

That feeling of disappointment only gets more intense with every memory you keep Optimus shut out of. It’s— You don’t know what he’s expecting. Or. You _do_ know what he’s expecting, he’s expecting you to turn over all the information you have about Iacon and the way it’s being run and governed. And what you know about Starscream. He said it himself, didn’t he? Even the most personal information will give him an advantage. You’re frozen, at this point. You aren’t negotiating the reasoning behind every memory kept locked, you’re just sticking blindly to the partitioning you worked out. Before.

It isn’t subtle, either. You have other memories he wouldn’t be able to get at, private moments with Windblade, little conversations. But he only brushes up against Windblade when it’s something to do with how Metroplex functions, or how other Titans are constructed. And he barely seems to care about her. But every little memory of Starscream, of city planning, city _defense,_ he goes right to them without any hesitation, and without even a hint of shame. When you think that, you get hit with a wave of reproach that you think he’s doing anything he ought to be _ashamed_ of.

No, that’s— You can’t even reach the end of the thought to explain why that’s not quite right. Optimus is flicking through meeting after meeting and day after day, fast enough that you’re just along for the ride, only pausing to prod at every last boundary you’ve laid in place, asking for access. And the disappointment is ramping up and up every time you numbly tell him no.

He doesn’t, doesn’t _ignore_ your discomfort, but you feel him examine those feelings, set them aside, and keep going, with a little extra burst of disappointment that you would feel that way in the first place.

Optimus catches up to the present before you can decide what to do, going carefully over each of the memories, as far as you’ll let him. You still feel… lost. Uncertain what just happened. You tentatively offer him a memory of driving through the wilderness outside Iacon, driving far enough out that you can see the whole city at a glance. He brushes that aside and goes back into your other memories again.

This time he lingers over your emotions, paying close enough attention and examining them with enough focus that it makes you uncomfortable to watch. He sends you reassurance—reassurance for _what,_ you don’t know—and keeps going. He doesn’t have to go through many memories of affection, familiarity, and friendship before he turns his attention back to _you,_ the actual you, and holding up those memories like— Not, not _quite_ an accusation. But you still feel trapped.

There’s a painful, long moment of nonresponse from you, and then you feel Prime’s acceptance, like that was enough of an answer, still with the crushing weight bearing down on you, of all that disappointment he isn’t bothering to hide.

You— Don’t understand. There’s always been a line between what people shared and what was too personal or too sensitive to share. You didn’t do anything wrong. Did you? You’re confused, you’re frozen with how confused you are. You aren’t trying to keep those feelings from him, you push them at him with as much of a question as you can manage. He doesn’t respond. You feel him sigh, feel nothing in response but that _disappointment,_ and then you feel him starting a shutdown sequence to sink into recharge.

What are you supposed to do at that point? You. Should sleep, you suppose. That’s what you lay down to do. You need to get some recharge if you want to be functional tomorrow. But. What just happened? You’re so numb you can barely even think it through, step by step. Part of you wants to message someone—Jazz?—to ask what’s going on, but you shut that thought down the moment it pops up, you can’t stand the idea of that thought leaking across the hardline right now.

You… shut down into recharge, you suppose. You can tell it’s a stupid decision even while you’re making it, but you can’t think of what else you’re supposed to _do._ You barely even make it into recharge before you jerk awake, not sure if you’re imagining the feeling of Optimus breaking through those partitions in your archives, accessing all the memories you told he couldn’t see the first time around. He isn’t. _Obviously._ Prime wouldn’t do that. You’re pretty sure. You’re… not quite as sure of that as you were yesterday.

The rest of your night doesn’t go much better. You’re exhausted, you weren’t lying about that. But it’s hard to stay in recharge when you can’t get that _what if_ out of your mind. What if Prime decides that seeing those files is more important than you telling him he can’t? That’s not fair. That’s the kind of frustrated thinking that made you decide you needed this break in the first place, you ought to know Optimus better than that. But what just _happened?_

You don’t think you manage a full defrag cycle all night, but there’s a point in the morning where you know you aren’t going to be able to get any further.

Once you give up on rest, you sit up in the berth, still feeling more numb than anything else. And plenty lost. Optimus stirs beside you, and you look over as his optics boot up, your linked cables still resting on his chest plate.

“Wheeljack?” he asks.

You reach down and disconnect your cables, so you can lie. “Urgent message from Starscream— from Cybertron, sorry. Looks like I’ve gotta dash ahead of schedule.

Optimus looks grave as he sits up, and you think he’s getting ready to say something, so you wave, walk to the door as fast as you can, and make a run for it. The moment you’re in the hallway, you hit your tires, and you bring up Metrotitan’s map and hope it’s accurate enough you won’t go crashing into a wall. You get a new comm alert from Optimus, and carefully do not open it. You compose a quick, distracted mass message for your other friends, making your excuses and apologizing for not staying as long as you promised. You hope it’s coherent, because you’re too sleepy and too rattled to proofread it right now. You send that out, and immediately mute comms for everyone stationed on Earth.

The space bridge is being manned by someone you don’t recognize, thank Primus, some young colonist who tries to say something about message from the Prime, wanting to speak to you before you go—

You wave them aside and boot up the space bridge yourself, stepping through before anyone else can say anything to you.

Back planetside, you barely stop to say a word to the mech stationed in Metroplex’s space bridge chamber, just— Just something about you’re back early, you’ve got something to take care of, just… you don’t even know. You make something that sounds like an excuse and then leave before anyone asks you more questions.

You hit your wheels again outside, on your way back up to the Council building. And you have to groan a bit. Can’t really go hide out in your quarters without passing a lot of mechs who are guaranteed to want something from you, and who’ll definitely be delighted to see you back early from your trip. Even this early, there will be plenty of folks around. Makes a mech wish he had an apartment on the outskirts of the city. Or on another planet.

No, you— Frag. You need to deal with this in some way. You slow down long enough in the streets that you can compose a slightly better message than the one you sent to your friends on Earth. Very, very slightly better. Back in the city, urgent matter to take care of, but you’ll be around— It’s one of the weakest excuses you’ve ever made, but you send it out without overthinking it too badly. And you start getting pings almost immediately, but none of them look so urgent you can’t ignore them for a day or two.

You slip into the Council building without too much trouble, shamelessly referencing your files on Starscream and Windblade’s schedules to make some guesses at which parts of the building are likely to be busy. It’s a bit roundabout, getting to your office, but you manage it without hardly having to say hello to anyone.

Of course, then you remember that you were planning to go to your _quarters._ Just. _Frag._

You’re steeling yourself to brave the halls again when you get a new, urgent meeting alert. From Windblade. For half a cycle from now. That’s… hm. You feel a bit hurt, even though you don’t have much reason to. She doesn’t know what’s up.

Still, you’ve barely even opened the meeting notification to see what you’ve been signed up for now when it’s immediately followed up with a single personal comm.

WB: NOT YOU.

Well— Okay. You’re probably too tired to parse what’s happening right now, but you’ll take it. You shut the meeting notice without responding, and brace yourself to make the short walk from your office to your quarters.

Yeah, you barely manage to make it out the door before you almost run face-first into Starscream.

Honestly, you’re _off_ enough that you barely even process there’s about to be a collision until after he’s already side-stepped it. Any other time, the expression on his face as he looks you over would be funny. Probably you’ll laugh about it later.

He begins, “What—?” But he cuts himself off and shakes his head. “It can wait. Come on, let’s go.”

Starscream starts off briskly down the hall, but you hesitate. When he realizes you aren’t with him, he pulls up short and gives you a dry look.

You jerk your thumb back over your shoulder, in the opposite direction. “My quarters are that way.”

He sighs, heavily, and steps forward to take one arm and tug you along down the hallway. “And my office is _this_ way. Is that so complicated, or do I need to break it down further?”

Yes, actually, you’d really appreciate if he explained any of this. But as you pull up beside him, he holds up one finger, discreetly, without looking at you. _One moment._

You follow him along into his office, but the moment the door closes behind you, he’s moving on to the inner door, to his quarters. “You have a sudden, urgent meeting scheduled with me,” he tells you. “Isn’t that lovely? I’m sure we’ll have a wonderful time.”

You check your alerts again. “I was pretty sure I had a sudden, urgent meeting with Windblade.”

He doesn’t look up from the keypad as he enters the access code but you see him smirk. “You got the message to ignore that, don’t worry about it.”

You keep following him right along, into his quarters, still as confused as anything and tired enough you almost stumble over your own feet. You’re trying not to get frustrated, but it’s honestly not that easy right now. “I’d really love it if I could get _some_ sort of explanation,” you finally say.

Starscream turns to you then. And you wish you knew what he was seeing on your face, because you see him frown slightly, his mouth turned down at the corners. He takes a half step forward, closing that little distance between you, and reaches up to take your face in his hands— almost. His fingertips just barely brush your faceplate before he lets his hands drop to your shoulders. He looks away, shaking his head.

“Of course,” he says. “You’ve been double booked for meetings all day, formally and informally. Windblade is about to start a very long emergency meeting about citizens illicitly patching into Metroplex’s power systems, which _is_ an issue, if not quite as much of an emergency as she’s framing it. She’ll be very visibly irritated that you can’t make it of course, because you’ll be tied up in a separate meeting with me— We need to establish that in our schedules before we go too much further.”

“Oh,” you say, a bit numbly.

Starscream lets his hands fall from your shoulders, but catches one of your hands in his and pulls you gently along with him towards a couch.

“I have a judicial council meeting later that I can’t afford to miss—”

“Isn’t Windblade—?”

“Windblade will be missing the judicial council meeting so that she can track you down and make up for lost time with Metroplex’s power systems.” He pauses. “By which we mean that we’re coordinating to keep you busy—excuse me, _“busy”_ — until tomorrow, when you’re actually supposed to get back to work. Windblade will be by when I have an engagement I absolutely can’t put off, but by and large, she’ll be taking the lead on the government work today.”

“Oh,” you repeat. And then because you’re too tired to think better of it, you add, “Lot of trust to put in her.”

Starscream gives you a sharp look, but you want to say the expression on his face is more embarrassment than anything else. “I’ll let you get away with saying something that ridiculous because you’ve clearly had an unpleasant night, and I do know how to be gracious.”

“I didn’t have an unpleasant night,” you protest as he pulls you down to sit on the couch.

He just gives you the most skeptical look you’ve ever seen and doesn’t say a word.

More quietly, you mutter, “It wasn’t _that_ bad.”

He sighs then, and reaches up to your face again, turning you to face him more fully. He gives you a searching look that you don’t know how to read, but you already feel a bit— overwhelmed. At the prospect of explaining everything that just went wrong to Starscream. What went wrong and _why_ it went wrong.

But after a long moment, he slowly, carefully says, “You don’t… need to tell me. Unless you’d like to.”

He doesn’t like saying that, you can see it written all over his face. But honestly, right now you’re just so painfully grateful that he said it in the first place that you don’t mind at all. Before you can stress yourself out of it, you slide one arm around his waist and turn your face into his shoulder, pressing it against his plating.

“Thanks,” you mumble. After a moment, you say, “I will. Soon. Just—”

You can feel the tension go out of his frame and he relaxes against you. “Do tell, am I allowed to fuss over you the way you insist on trying to fuss over me? I hate to tell you, but it is painfully apparent you didn’t get anything out of recharge last night. And have you bothered to eat today? I would lay a wager with myself, except I know that when you get distracted, you only remember that _other_ people need energon to function, not yourself. And just think, I can even make a valid case for how I never see you out for a recreational flight these days—”

You’re laughing weakly by the time he finishes. He has to untangle your arm from his waist before he can get up to go retrieve a cube of energon from the dispenser at the wall, and by the time he comes back carrying the cube and a straw, you’re half-asleep against the back of the couch.

He prods your leg with one pede until you sit up and take the cube from him, but he only hands it off so he can get himself situated beside you again and place your free arm back firmly around his waist.

There’s quiet for a klik while you drink. Starscream takes a small stack of datapads from a side table and begins shuffling through them.

Abruptly, Starscream says, “Windblade won’t pry either. She knows not to.”

It takes your processor a moment to catch up, and even then you don’t know how to answer. Your arm tightens around his waist, and at the edge of your vision, you can see him smile, very faintly, as he looks at you.

But also, “You don’t need to worry,” you say, as encouragingly as you can manage. “I’ll be fine.”

He gives you a dry look. “Well, remind me to use _that_ excuse the next time I need to persuade you to let something go. I’m sure it will work just as well for me as it does for you.” He plucks the empty energon cube from your hand and disperses it, setting the straw aside. “Now, about that recharge.”

You’re nodding along in agreement before you catch yourself. Wait, no. “Meeting,” you try. That’s not a full sentence. “We need to set up that meeting. What are we working on?" You glance at the datapads he’s holding, but he snatches them away, setting them back on the side table. “Energon distribution infrastructure? I can talk distribution infrastructure.”

“No, absolutely not,” he says. “You won’t be doing anything of the sort, because you’ll be in _recharge.”_

“But—”

“You’ll be in recharge, I’ll be busy reformatting and rewording the proposal you already composed, and putting it in terms that the Council will vote to approve. You’ve done quite enough to cover the mechanics, thank you, and now _I’ll_ be applying politics to the document.”

You try one last protest. “I can help.”

“You absolutely cannot, you’re still on vacation.” Starscream hesitates for a moment, then turns far enough to press one quick kiss against the center of your helm. “I already overrode your calendar to book those meetings. The only thing you’re allowed to do until tomorrow is cooperate with Windblade and me when we hand you off to each other.”

“Well, frag.” You could argue harder, you really _ought_ to argue harder, but your processor keeps moving in skips and jumps, and you’re realizing how desperate you are for at least one half-decent defrag cycle. Starscream slips an arm around your waist and pulls you a little more tightly against him. You’re halfway into recharge already, just sitting here with your head resting on his shoulder. “Guess I don’t have a choice.”

“Absolutely not,” Starscream says. You have to struggle to track the words he’s saying. “You’re our prisoner now, absolutely helpless, nothing for you to do but surrender.” Your optics shut down without your conscious command, but you can feel him kiss your helm again. The last thing you hear is Starscream firmly saying, “Now, _sleep.”_

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/171262341311/your-face-becomes-the-sun-spockandawe-the)


End file.
